Silent Night
by CaelinnE
Summary: Lisbon finds out that sometimes silence is the best thing you can say. One-shot. Warning: Contains gore, abuse, and mildly coarse language.


Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist or any of the characters in this story. They belong to CBS, and it's constituents. I'm merely playing in their sandbox.

Summary: Lisbon finds out that sometimes silence is the best thing you can say.

Note: This story continues along the same thread as my previous stories I'll Take the Nightmares Any Day and Whatever Dreams May Come. It would be wise to read those stories first, as there are slight references to them in this tale.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of gore, abuse, and mildly coarse language. Please note the rating and do not read if disturbed easily by these things.

**Silent Night**

Insomnia is a relatively common occurrence for members of law enforcement. We often see the worst of what Man can do to his fellow Man, and it haunts us. Many a good cop or agent has become burnt-out over what we see every day, because it seems like no matter what we do, it's still the same. It's part of what brings me to staring out my bay window tonight, watching the late-fall deluge of rain that we needed months ago. Part of me is haunted by the scene of a multiple homicide we were assigned to yesterday. A mother, two sons, and one daughter were discovered–well, there's no other way to put it but _slaughtered_–by a third son who had been playing in the park with some of his friends. The father was nowhere to be found. The rest of me is being haunted by seeing the son standing over his father's body with a gun in his hand.

O*O

What met our eyes as we entered the small, ranch-style house on a beautiful Saturday afternoon was like something out of a slasher film. Were it not for the sweet/metallic scent that filled my nostrils and instantly screamed to me 'blood' before I had even reached the door, I would have started looking around for a camera crew and director. There were two bodies in the front room, both children. The girl looked to be about 14 or 15, the boy looked about 10. At a glance, it looked like the boy was taken by surprise. His throat had been cut from behind, and he just fell forward over his video game controller with headphones still over his ears. The game was still flashing on the screen. The girl had knew it was coming. She had multiple knife wounds on her arms and hands from struggling with her attacker before he stabbed her four times in the chest and twice in the abdomen. I knew that the crime scene sweepers would discover that most of the blood covering the walls, floor, and ceiling was hers.

The single officer that could stomach staying in the house was standing to the side of the room. I went over to him to get a briefing on the situation.

"It was the oldest boy who called it in," the officer stated in lieu of an introduction. "He's outside with my partner. I'm sure you'll get his statement for yourself, but the Cliff's Notes version is he was out with his friends at Godfrey Park playing ball this morning. He got home a little past 1300, and found this. He immediately ran outside to the neighbor's screaming for them to call 911. Now here's the kicker: he claims his father did it."

Just looking at the veteran officer, you could tell he didn't believe a word the kid was saying. He was one of those old-timer cops that believed all kids were a no-good, lying, cheating, worthless bunch that was guilty until proven innocent. I've had to deal with plenty of them during my years with the CBI, and I always take their 'observations' with a grain of salt. Mostly because they are the same ones who think I should be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, and that I have no business doing 'man's work.'

Barely stopping myself from rolling my eyes at him, I turned and gave a look to Rigsby and van Pelt. They knew that I wanted them to go and get a real statement from the kid. I had planned to keep Jane with me so that he could give me some insight into the family's life (After all, the kid wouldn't blame his father without having some kind of proof.), but one look at him and I knew he had to get out of there. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the children.

"Jane?" He looked up to me quickly, the mask blank on his face. "Follow them. I want you to keep an eye on him. You'll know what to look for." I saw a quick 'thanks' flash in his eyes before he turned silently and walked out the door.

Cho and I stayed in the house and finished processing the scene. The second boy, this one looking to be about 16 or 17 years-old, was in his room. From the blood spatter, he had been sitting at his computer with his back to the door when the killer came in and slit his throat from behind, too. Unlike his brother, however, he didn't die immediately. He stood up–spraying blood everywhere–and faced his attacker; you could see the void in the blood where the killer had been standing. The poor kid collapsed after only one step, though, and died where he fell.

The worst had to be the mother. He'd really done a number on her. From the number of stab wounds, he had been her real target. The coroner told us that she appeared to have been struck on the back of the head, and been stabbed at least sixteen times; the medical examiner could give us an exact number. She had no defensive knife wounds, but she did have extensive bruising on her forearms and on what little skin of her abdomen that wasn't covered in blood. I could tell by the yellowish color of some of the bruises that they hadn't been as a result of struggling with the killer. Those pointed to something a little more long-term. And if my hunch was correct, those bruises were probably the reason the kid out front was accusing his dad of murder.

We left the coroner and sweepers to finish their work and went outside. The beautiful cloudless day seemed wrong somehow after what we just left. I could see that the rest of the team was still questioning the kid, who actually looked to be closer to 20 than a 'kid', so I had Cho take the neighbor to the east while I took the one to the west.

As I walked across the yard, I could see the vultures circling the perimeter of the crime scene, their cameras and microphones waving around and suddenly zeroing in on me. I hate the media. All I want to do is catch a killer and bring him to justice; all they want is the next sound bite to increase their ratings. And right now, they were getting their next sound bite from the neighbor I wanted to question. I will never admit it out loud, but I _thoroughly_ enjoyed interrupting the local media bimbo when she asked if the massacre of her neighbors next door made her worry for the safety of her own family. I was thinking that if the poor woman wasn't scared before you started throwing the word 'massacre' around, she probably is now. Not to mention that any person in their right mind is going to worry when something so brutal happens so close to their home, so why bring it up? Rather than voice my admittedly subjective opinion, I merely went up to the reporter and said that I needed to ask the lady some questions.

After going inside of her house and away from the blood-sucking leeches of society, I proceeded to ask her about the family next door. According to her, they seemed like the ideal family. The wife was quiet and a little shy, but the kids were very well mannered and well liked by everyone in the neighborhood. She said they didn't act like teenagers usually do; they didn't back-talk or stay out at all hours of the night or walk the streets laughing and horseplaying with their friends. Evidently, all the parents on the block envied them. I didn't bother to tell her that what she was describing to me was actually some of the warning signs of an abusive household. People don't realize that adolescents are supposed to test their boundaries; it prepares them for adulthood. I learned that first-hand with my brothers. And even shy, quiet women will open up eventually after living in the same neighborhood for over fifteen years.

For the husband, she just seemed to gush about him. About how successful he was, what a wonderful family man he was, how he said he always knew where his kids were and what they were doing, how he had told her that there was no way his children would do anything foolish like drugs or alcohol while they lived under his roof.

'His' children and 'his' roof. I've learned things from Jane over the years that I'll be forever grateful for, and one of those things is how when we are asked about a person, we will unconsciously use words and phrases that the person has used themself. How they describe things in their own words is how we will remember them, and we will use those same words and phrases to describe them if asked by a third party. When she talked about the wife and kids, they were individuals. However, when she got to the husband, they were suddenly referred to as his possessions.

I left her house with a better sense of who this man was. He was possessive, controlling, physically abusive (at least to the wife), and above all else he was missing. When I ducked back under the police tape and asked one of the officers for an update on his location, he said they were still trying to pin him down. He was supposed to be at work, but had left for an early lunch and hadn't returned. I was trying to keep an open mind, but things weren't looking good for the 'father-of-the-year' his neighbor had portrayed him as.

Cho was ducking under the tape as I was finishing the update with the officer, and we compared notes. His were similar to mine but for one glaring detail. The man Cho had interviewed had described the father as wolf in sheep's clothing. As Cho noted down, the man said he 'looks like a loving father on the outside, but his eyes are just cold. If you look at the surface, he seems to be adoring his kids, but I'll tell you this: I'll never look at my own kid the way he does his. The look in his eye is like he would snap their necks in a heartbeat and just keep walking.' From what Cho said, the man had been holding his infant son during the interview, and when he got to the father he unconsciously cradled his boy closer as if to protect him from something. It seems like I'm not the only one to have paid attention to Jane's lessons.

I walked over to where the rest of the team were gathered around the surviving son. He was sitting up on a gurney in the back of an ambulance, with Rigsby and van Pelt sitting on the bench next to him and Jane outside leaning on the open doors. The young man was pale, and his eyes held that haunted look that the victims who survive always have. Jane walked towards me and Cho, and told us that he was telling them the truth, but was obviously holding something back. He thought that if we could get the young man away from there, we might get more from him.

The paramedics cleared him as not suffering from shock, but warned us to watch for signs of it. Like this was the first time we'd ever dealt with a victim or witness to a brutal crime. I ordered Rigsby and van Pelt to take him to headquarters in the SUV, while the rest of us took the sedan back. Jane said he would like to go with them, so I let him go.

When we got back to HQ, I asked van Pelt to take the young man into one of the interview rooms and stay with him while the team and I compared notes. She seemed a little put out at being assigned babysitting duty, but went without a fuss. The rest of us went down the hall to our bullpen and started comparing. Cho and I relayed our findings with the immediate neighbors, and Rigsby gave us the run through of what their interview.

Apparently, the young man claimed that his father regularly beat his mother in front of the kids, verbally abused her when he wasn't doing so physically, and when he couldn't get his kicks with her, he would set his sights on the kids. I pointed out that I had seen no evidence of physical abuse on the dead children, and Rigsby said that the oldest son had deflected most of his father's rage away from his younger siblings and onto himself. He had rolled up his sleeve in the back of the ambulance and shown them quite a remarkable bruise, then proceeded to tell them he had even more spectacular ones on his body.

Jane's contribution was that the young man was 20, studying business at a local college when he was more suited to engineering or architecture, and that he was doing it to not only satisfy his father's desire that he follow in his footsteps but also so that he could stay closer to home to protect his siblings. The kid was telling the truth about everything, but there was something about his father that he wasn't saying and Jane had no clue as to what that something could be.

I decided that Jane and I would question the young man further with van Pelt in the room, while Cho and Rigsby would remain in the observation room. He was crying, but not hard. It was the soft, defeated-sounding sobs that tell you the person sees themself as having failed somehow. That there was something more they could have done. I didn't give him empty platitudes, or tell him there was nothing he could have done, or other such bull that people usually say at times like these. I just quietly gave him a tissue from the box on the table and sat down. When he had calmed himself, I started taking him gently through the beginning of the interview process. His answers remained consistent, and we didn't get anything out of him we didn't already know, but Jane was right–he was hiding something about his father. No matter how I phrased the questions and tried to trip him up, he didn't stumble or slip up.

Knowing when to just let things sit for a while, I asked him if he would let us document the wounds his father had inflicted on him and he agreed. Jane, van Pelt, and I left the room and I asked Rigsby and Cho to go in and photograph the bruises and see if they could get dates on when his father inflicted them, and then cut the kid loose. The rest of us went back to the bullpen and I ordered van Pelt to begin using all her computer resources to track down this bastard. I went into my office and began the mundane police work of calling his work so I could begin the time-line for the murders, track down relatives so they could be informed that their lives will never be the same, and point Jane over to my couch so I could get some work done. I had wanted to take a few minutes to help him, because I knew this case was starting to get to him, but those few minutes could mean the difference of catching this guy and letting him get away.

I did spare him a glance while on the phone with the mother's parents in Jersey, telling them of the murders, and he looked tired. Not just from his bouts of insomnia, but the emotional drainage that occurs with cases that hit so close to home. I hung up with their assurances that they would be on the next flight to Sacramento to take care of their grandson. I opened my mouth to get Jane's attention when Rigsby and Cho came in. They gave me the everything they had on the kid's abuse for the report and told me they had sent him to a college friend's house for the night. They also gave him the warning that if he saw his father, he was not to confront him, but call us immediately.

When they left, Jane asked me without opening his eyes, "Do they honestly believe that kid won't do something to his father if he sees him? The man just killed everyone he's ever loved." I knew that, but to hear Jane voice it was like getting kicked in the stomach by a mule. I knew it was coming, but it still hurt like hell when it landed in my gut.

"Whether they believe it or not–likely not, given present company–they have to tell him. If he does something foolish, it's not going to be his father that's destroyed." While we were talking about the young man who just left, we both knew that he wasn't what we were talking about.

Jane just opened one eye and lifted his eyebrow at me. I knew what he was thinking: that I was going to use this as a platform to preach from. So I figured, why disappoint him? I turned my back to him and faced my computer screen, because I didn't want Jane to see the ghosts of my own past when I said to him, "Funny thing, vengeance. I've seen a lot about it over my years in the agency, and if there's one thing I've learned about it, it's this. It consumes us. It drives us to hunt down the thing that has hurt us the most and destroy it in the most brutal–and imaginative–way possible. We hunt with a blood lust that blocks out everything around us, and God help anyone who gets in our way. And then one day, we find our prey and it's over. Our prey's destroyed, and we rejoice.

"But then we wake up, and realize our prey's not destroyed. It's only dead. The real destruction is all around us. Because somewhere along our way to vengeance, on our way to get our payback, we see that we became what we sought to destroy. And that makes us worse than they could ever be."

I could hear Jane practically vibrating as he stood up. "Save your sanctimonious crap for someone else."

I was surprised the glass in my door didn't shatter when he slammed it shut behind him. I closed my eyes, not able to turn and face the retreating back of my friend. Or once-friend, as it seemed now. In my desire to save him from himself, I had just destroyed our friendship. I knew our working relationship wasn't going to be affected by this–after all, I was the means to his end–but our comradery and close friendship were over. He would continue to work for me as a consultant, all the while using me to get leads and tips on Red John.

Rigsby had obviously drawn the short straw and came in to ask me if everything was alright. I turned and looked at him, and for a brief moment I was very amused. He looked positively terrified. I snorted to myself and thought, 'you'd think I was threatening to shoot him, with the way he's carrying himself.' I gave him a small smile so he wouldn't piddle his pants, and told him we were just having a personal disagreement. I got up and followed him out into the bullpen and told them to get together and order in dinner; we weren't going home until this case was solved. When Cho asked me if he should order for me and Jane, I told him not to bother. I wasn't hungry and Jane needed time to cool off.

We worked through the night. Van Pelt tracked the father's finances looking for anything that would have pointed to where he had gone to ground. Rigsby went through the forensic reports that were just starting to come in. Cho handled the ME's reports that had come in.

It seemed that the same weapon was used on the two bodies that the ME had gotten to so far, but the other two would have to wait until morning. The first report was the mother's, and it appears she had suffered long-term abuse. Bruises in various stages of healing, ranging from hours to weeks old. Evidence of fractured bones, mostly old and healed except for two fractured ribs that were five to seven days old. The 17 year-old boy only had one bruise on his upper arm where someone with considerable strength gripped him about 10 days before.

Around 0530, I sent my team to the crib to catch a couple hours of sleep, and Cho and Rigsby took me up on it. Van Pelt, however, refused as she said she was getting close. She had found evidence of a second account, and was trying to pin it down. She hoped that if she could get into those records, that maybe he had rented a hotel room or apartment using that account. I left her to it, because so far it was all the lead we had.

Cho and Rigsby came in two hours later with a fresh pot of coffee from the break room. I was on my second cup from that pot (I lost count of the total hours before) when Jane came strolling in just before 0800. I'll admit I was shocked, not that he came in but that he'd come in early. But I could see the evidence that the night had been just as long for him as it was for the rest of us.

I was saved from having to come up with some kind of greeting by a joyous shout from van Pelt. She'd found out from the second account's records that the murdering bastard had an apartment rented about 15 minutes from HQ. We piled into the SUV and sedan and sped to the address van Pelt had found.

We pulled our vehicles up to the apartment complex and I ordered van Pelt and Cho to go around to the back side of the building and told Jane to stay in the car. He gave me a short nod and got back in. It had begun raining lightly, and I hoped that it would hold off long enough for us to arrest this guy and get back to HQ. Just as Rigsby and I turned to go in the main entrance, we heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. We both drew our weapons and ran into the building, ran up three flights of stairs, and after announcing ourselves kicked open the door to the apartment.

Standing over the body of his father was the son. The gun he was holding slid nervelessly from his fingers and hit the floor. I cringed in reflex, because pistols–especially cheap ones, like this one obviously was–are notorious for going off if dropped right after firing a shot. Luckily, it didn't discharge. The look in the kid's eyes said it all. Disbelief, shock, and horror were just a few of the emotions flitting through them. With my gun trained to his chest, I knew he wasn't going to fight us. I told Rigsby to watch him as I checked to make sure his father was dead. There was nothing, as I expected, so I stood up and radioed Cho and van Pelt to come up and to notify the crime scene sweepers and coroner to come.

I turned to the young man, holstered my gun, and drew out my handcuffs. I pulled his hands behind him and hooked them together and said, "You have the right to remain silent...." but I could get no further. I knew that one day, I would find Jane like this and I would be saying the same thing to him. I heard Rigsby holster his weapon and finish reciting the Miranda for me. I ordered Cho and van Pelt to take him to lock up and have him booked. The charges of murder to be determined by the District Attorney. And they were to take Jane with them, because I really couldn't face him right then.

By the time the coroner and forensics arrived, swept the place, loaded the body and left, I knew that the booking process was over and Rigsby and I needed to get back to HQ to begin the interrogation.

When we arrived, Cho and van Pelt had already set him up in an interrogation room. They told me that he declined having a lawyer present at this time. Dreading what was going to come, I ordered Cho into the interrogation room with me and everyone else, including Jane, into observation.

What happened next was three-and-a-half hours of hell. We rehashed everything, starting with yesterday when he woke up to when Rigsby and I kicked in the door. I grilled him hard, asking him why he killed his family, where'd he get the gun, how did he track down his father. All questions I had to ask, but made me feel like an evil witch with a capital 'B' to have asked.

He remained adamant about what he had said the previous day, not diverging once from his sworn statement no matter how we tried to trip him up. He had taken the gun from his friend whose house he had gone to the night before. Then he told us what he had withheld from us yesterday: he'd known about his father's apartment. Evidently, the friend he had gone to stay with was only a block from his father's second home, and he'd seen his father enter the building a few months ago when he'd been visiting. He had decided not to tell us because now that he had nothing to loose, he was going to kill him for what he did to his mom, brothers, and sister.

For most of the interview, he did nothing but stare at his cuffed hands on the tabletop. But at this point, he looked up to me and said, "I thought it would make me feel better, because he'd finally gotten what was his. That after twenty years of abuse, he got what he deserved. But I feel worse, 'cause they're not coming back, are they?" I don't trust my voice, so I just shake my head. "In the end, I became my father, didn't I?" I don't respond as he lays down his head and starts sobbing, "Then I'm glad they're dead. They don't get to see what I've become. They'd be ashamed of what I've become."

I get up and motion for them to cut the recorder through the one-way mirror. I turned to the kid and say softly, "I'll recommend that the DA reduce the charges from murder to manslaughter, and for her to push for the minimum sentence. I don't know if she'll go for it, but that's my recommendation."

He didn't lift his head as he replied, "It doesn't matter."

I stood there looking at that broken child for 10 or 15 seconds before I went out the door with Cho behind me. The assistant DA, who'd also been in observation, came out into the hall and told me he was going to second my recommendation after he finished reviewing the final reports. After thanking him, I turned back to my team to find them one man short. I lifted my eyebrow in question to van Pelt and she said that Jane had left as soon as I motioned for them to stop recording.

With a nod and a sigh, I turned and led my team back to the bullpen as the officers led the kid out of interrogation to go back to lockup. I knew that I wasn't likely to see Jane for the rest of the day, not that I knew what I was going to say to him. There was nothing _to_ say. I ordered my team to write up their reports and when they finished, they were free to go. We'd been on duty for close to 36 hours, it was time to rest.

O*O

I've been home for two hours now, and my mind can't seem to shut down long enough for me to fall asleep. And truth be told, I don't want to fall asleep. I don't want to face nightmares or dreams tonight. I just want to shut off and not wake up.

Just before coming home, they called me from down in lockup to tell me the kid tried to kill himself. They found him before he hung himself, but now he's on suicide watch until God-knows-when. I can't help but wonder how much longer it'll be until I'm getting that call about Jane. Despite everything I did yesterday to screw up our friendship, I still care for him deeply. I know his past mental health history, and I can't help but wonder if the difficulty of this case might push him back into depression. But I don't know what to do, what to say, to help him. Some kind of friend I am.

I'm disturbed from my thoughts by a very soft knock at the door. It's probably my neighbor two floors down. She's a tiny 80 year-old woman who occasionally forgets her keys inside before locking her door. She left her spare key with me because I guess she trusts people with badges. I just feel bad for living on the top floor of a four-story walk up. She's got a long way down if she ever trips.

I open the door to see not my neighbor, but Jane standing on my doormat, his hands in his pockets and soaked to the skin. "Jane, what are you doing here? Come inside before you catch your death!" He looks like he walked from headquarters to my apartment, because there is no way he got that drenched just from the short walk from the parking lot and into the building. I turn from the door and jog to my linen closet to get some towel for him to dry off with. I hear him shuffle softly inside and close the door.

As I approach where he's standing–dripping water all over my wood floors–he looks me straight in the eye and whispers, "I'm not going to do it."

For a moment there, I stand stunned. While I know what it is he's saying, my brain just isn't wanting to compute. Is he saying what I've been hoping–_praying_–for years that he would say? My brain is saying that it's impossible, that Jane's drive to kill Red John is too strong; that he would never stop hunting the man who killed his wife and daughter. But I see in his eyes the truth: he _has_ given up the hunt. He finally understands what vengeance is. It never destroys the prey, _only the hunter_.

The towels drop nervelessly from my hands as I run across my living room and throw my arms around his neck. "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" I whisper over and over as relief washes through me. He's getting me soaking wet, but I don't care. He just holds onto me as tight as a drowning man would a life-preserver. In fact, I can feel my ribs protest and my lungs struggle to draw in air, but I don't tell him to loosen his grip; I just hold on tighter as he begins to tremble. I feel water of a different sort soaking through my shirt where he's buried his head in my shoulder. He's completely silent, but he's crying no less harder than I did onto him months ago.

I don't know how long we've stood there in the foyer, but eventually he loosens his grip and draws away. I pull one of his handkerchiefs out of my pocket and hand it to him. He looks puzzled as he takes it from me, and I give an embarrassed shrug as I turn and pick up the towels I'd dropped. I drape one over his curly head and throw the other to the floor where a fairly sizable puddle has formed beneath him.

I put a fresh kettle of water on the stove, and go to my room to fetch a pair of sweats and t-shirt my brother had left here accidentally the last time he stopped for a visit. Both he and Jane seem to be of a size, so Jane can get out of his suit before he catches a chill. I wordlessly hand him the borrowed clothes, trust him to go change while I make the tea.

The shower starts up as the kettle comes to boil, and I mindlessly begin the ritual of tea-making. As I set the mugs on the counter and get the milk from the fridge, it dawns on me. The nightmare is finally over and I can smile. Oh, don't get me wrong, I will hunt Red John into the ground for what he did to my friend. Now that I know that Jane won't go off by himself to gut Red John like a fish, he won't stand a chance. I welcome the dreams of putting the cuffs on Red John, even though I know that he is still out there. I know that for now, I will have those dreams and wake up in tears or wake up in anger, but one day I _will_ put those cuffs on in reality. I _will_ take him alive, and I will get a vindictive pleasure from watching him rot away slowly in a metal cage I helped put him in. As I hear the shower turn off and the curtain drawn back, I amend that last thought. _We_ will put him in that cage, because I have no intention of keeping Jane out of the hunt now. So long as he agrees to take him alive, Jane can help as much as he wants.

Jane is sitting on the couch when I enter the living room, staring at the rain pelting down outside. I hand him his mug and grab the afghan from the back of the couch. We sit shoulder-to-shoulder in comfortable silence under my ancient afghan, and sip our teas. He is grieving again, I can tell, but it is the healing grief of letting go. I'll give him tonight, and maybe even tomorrow if he needs it, but come the day after tomorrow I'm going to sit him down and come up with a game plan as to how to catch the bastard that has plagued the people of California for too long.

I can see the now-empty mug starting to slip from Jane's fingertips, and catch it before it falls to the floor. Sure enough, he's dead to the world. With a quiet chuckle, I put both our mugs on the table beside the couch and settle back. I had worried earlier about what I could say to him that wouldn't damage our friendship anymore than I already have, but I realize now that I didn't have to say a thing. I guess that old song was right, you _do_ say it best when you say nothing at all.

After a few minutes of watching the rain trickle down to a steady drizzle, I lay my head on the shoulder of my best friend and close my eyes. For the first time in a long time, I have a silent night.


End file.
